‘Amoral, evil’: vitriolic backlash builds against comics who played Riyadh festival

<p>Murder by bone-saw, lashings for rape victims, punitive amputation, jail for satirists … these are the Saudi human rights abuses fuelling the fury being directed at the likes of Louis CK, Dave Chappelle and Jimmy Carr. How have they responded?</p><p>To paraphrase <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/44212/the-love-song-of-j-alfred-prufrock">TS Eliot</a>: and was it worth it after all?<em> </em>A question to ponder for those who have taken the coin of a government once described unequivocally as <a href="https://www.refworld.org/reference/annualreport/freehou/2006/en/43414">“the worst of the worst”</a> by one human rights advocacy organisation.</p><p>The past decade has seen Saudi Arabia invest in everything from football to <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-68903890">opera</a> to video games – all part of the regime’s efforts to diversify its oil-dependent economy and its execution-heavy reputation.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2025/oct/09/backlash-builds-against-comics-who-played-riyadh-comedy-festival">Continue reading...</a>